Korea's last circus, Dongchoon, holds up as it marks centennial

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Korea's last circus, Dongchoon, holds up as it marks centennial

Acrobats from Dongchoon Circus Troupe perform during a daily regular performance in Ansan, Gyeonggi, on June 11. [AP/YONHAP]

Acrobats from Dongchoon Circus Troupe perform during a daily regular performance in Ansan, Gyeonggi, on June 11. [AP/YONHAP]

 
No more elephant and monkey acts. No more death-defying motorbike stunts. No more singing or acting on stage.
 
Several hundred spectators still clapped constantly when acrobats with the century-old Dongchoon Circus Troupe, Korea’s last circus, twirled on a long suspended fabric, juggled clubs on a large, rotating wheel and rode a unicycle on a tightrope under the big top.
 

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“As I recall the hardship that I’ve gone through, I think I’ve done something significant,” Park Sae-hwan, the head of the circus, said in a recent Associated Press interview. “But I also feel a heavy responsibility because if Dongchoon stops, our country’s circus, one genre in our performing arts, will disappear. That’s the problem.”
 
Founded in 1925, Dongchoon is Korea's oldest circus. In the golden ages of Korean circuses in the 1960s, when most households still had no TVs, Dongchoon traveled across the country, wowing audiences with then exotic animals like elephants and giraffes and a variety of shows including skits, comic talks, singing, dancing and magic shows. At its peak years, it had more than 200 artists, acrobats and other staff, according to Park.
 
Like in many other countries, TVs and movies later siphoned off the audiences of Dongchoon and other circuses in Korea. Their actors, singers and comedians moved to TV stations, and some became bigger stars. The advent of the internet, video games and professional sports was another blow. Korean circuses also dropped animal shows, which faced protests by animal rights campaigners.
 
Now, Dongchoon is the only circus in Korea after all its rivals went out of business.
 
Spectators arrive at the big top of Dongchoon Circus Troupe in Ansan, Gyeonggi, June 10. [AP/YONHAP]

Spectators arrive at the big top of Dongchoon Circus Troupe in Ansan, Gyeonggi, June 10. [AP/YONHAP]

Park Sae-hwan, head of Dongchoon Circus Troupe, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Seoul, June 9. [AP/YONHAP]

Park Sae-hwan, head of Dongchoon Circus Troupe, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Seoul, June 9. [AP/YONHAP]

 
Park, who joined Dongchoon in 1963, served as a show host and sometimes sang and acted in the circus's drama programs. He left the circus in 1973 and ran a lucrative supermarket business. In 1978, he returned to the circus industry by taking over Dongchoon, which was put up for sale after devastating typhoon damage.
 
Park, now 80, said he worried Dongchoon could disappear into history after seeing newspaper reports that its assets would be split into parts and sold.
 
“I thought Dongchoon must not disappear. When we want to study the roots of our country's dramas, we should look back on the traces of Dongchoon. The same goes for the history of our other shows, traditional music performances and magic shows as well as circuses themselves,” Park said.
 
Heo Jeong-joo, an expert at the All That Heritage Research Institute, also values highly the legacy of Dongchoon, which she said incorporated many traditional performers and artists who operated before its 1925 founding.
 
“Its foundation exceeds 100 years. In a historical perspective, I think it should be designated as an intangible cultural asset,” Heo said.
 
An acrobat from Dongchoon Circus Troupe performs during a daily regular performance in Ansan, Gyeonggi, June 11. [AP/YONHAP]

An acrobat from Dongchoon Circus Troupe performs during a daily regular performance in Ansan, Gyeonggi, June 11. [AP/YONHAP]

 
Park said he almost closed the circus in 2009 after his shows drew only 10 to 20 spectators each for several months during a widespread flu outbreak. It survived after local media reports sympathizing with the plight of Dongchoon prompted many people to flock and fully pack shows for weeks, he said.
 
Since 2011, Dongchoon has been performing at a big top at a seaside tourist area in Ansan, just south of Seoul. Its circus workers also frequently travel to other areas for temporary shows. Dongchoon officials said their business is doing relatively well, drawing several hundred spectators on weekdays and up to 2,000 on weekends at Ansan alone.
 
Ansan official Sharon Ham said local tourism has been boosted by Dongchoon's presence. She said Dongchoon shows are popular with both older generations wanting to recall childhood memories of circuses and younger generations seeking something new.
 
“It was a very impressive and meaningful circus,” Sim Chung-yong, a 61-year-old spectator, said after one show last week. “But I also thought about how much big pains and hardships those circus acrobats underwent to perform like this.”
 
Dongchoon officials say they now offer only acrobatic performances and refrain from too-risky acts because many people don't like them any longer.
 
An old newspaper that shows Park Sae-hwan, 80, head of the circus, is placed near the Dongchoon Circus Troupe big top entrance gate in Ansan, Gyeonggi, June 10. [AP/YONHAP]

An old newspaper that shows Park Sae-hwan, 80, head of the circus, is placed near the Dongchoon Circus Troupe big top entrance gate in Ansan, Gyeonggi, June 10. [AP/YONHAP]

 
All 35 of its acrobats are now Chinese, as a circus job is generally shunned by more affluent Koreans who consider it too dangerous and low-paying. Park said he bought land at Ansan where he hopes to build a circus school to nurture Korean circus artists.
 
Xing Jiangtao, 37, has been working for Dongchoon since 2002 — initially as an acrobat and now as its performance director. He recalled that when he first came to Korea, he and his Chinese colleagues all worked as assistants to Dongchoon's 50 Korean acrobats, but they've all left one by one.
 
“Now, it's the only circus in Korea, and I hope we will create good circus performances to show to spectators so that we can help Dongchoon exist for another 100 years," Xing said in fluent Korean.

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